If your hood is sitting lower than the fender on one side and higher on the other, or higher in the front and lower in the rear, then there is a solution. First, you must adjust your hood to bring the highest portion level with the fender. This will cause the lower to be even lower, but this can be resolved by simply purchasing several rubber hood alignment bumpers. Place some masking tape on the fender across to the hood at each low spot so you know where to position these bumpers. Open your hood and measure the thickness of the hood edge. Place the hood alignment bumper inside the tray edge at the tape mark. Using the measurement of the hood thickness, measure down from the fender top edge and mark the inner surface. The hood alignment bumper will need to be trimmed to match the distance from the mark to the tray. Once trimmed, place the hood bumper in position, lower the hood to touch and let it sit in the sun. Fiberglass will move, so as it warms up the hood will slowly drop at the rear until it is in perfect alignment with the fenders. Do this for both sides and your hood will fit properly.

 

Thanks for the info.

Have had your L88 hood for 38 years now, no problems.

 

Yes this does work as I used this trick for years, and with a supercharger hole in the hood you need to do this more than once.

 

Ok, may be I'm not reading this right but my hood is 1/8" to 3/16" high on the LH front right above the hood hinge the rest of the hood fits perfectly
What options have I got if any?
cheers Dave

 

Dave,
What you wrote was hard to read without proper punctuation.

If I got what your wrote correctly....the HOOD is higher than the top hood surround by the hinge area.

IF you do not have shims under that hinge....there is nothing you can do....BUT.....

IF the top hood surround is NOT bonded to the inner skirt in this area....trying to add shims to raise the headlight support beam will provide very little improvement...but it depends. And that is even if your car still has the correct support brackets at eh ends of the headlight support beam.

ALSO...not knowing what year you have makes it hard to advise any further also due to the body material changed in the 1968 to 1982 era.

DUB

 

What is the width of the 454 BB hood on a 72, measured across the furthest rear point? I have a wide gap and since the front clip has a fixed dimension, I'm wondering which part is off (clip or hood). Tnx.

 

Hi DUB, thanks for your reply, man I'm confused when I read that back!! Try again, the hood is a little high(above fender) on LH front there is no shims under the hinge and it's a 77

cheers Dave

 

BOLD print is not me yelling...just emphasizing importance.

Dave can you post a photo???

As I wrote in the previous post. I have to assume that your top hood surround is BONDED to the inner skirt area ABOVE you left upper A-arm. IF IT IS...then the inner skirt and top hood surround a SET...and the dimension where your hood hinge bolts to the inner skirt....and the top edge of the top hood surround at the hinge are NOW A GIVEN SET MEASUREMENT because they CANNOT move independently from each other due to being bonded.

A lot of it has to do with if the car was ever in an accident and when these parts were bonded...they are not the same from side to side.

I do not know if you are missing the outer support brace for the headlight support beam in your top hood surround ...that attaches to the front of the inner skirts. SOMETIMES the bolt can be removed or loosened and this area raised CAREFULLY and a shim installed....but that is hard to actually say if that would work...because it has in the past for me on some rare occasions. BUT on your car there are also some other areas that are securing the end of the fort clip to the impact bar....and to access these..the front bumper cover has to come off.

Raising it an 1/8" is not that much...but I CAN NOT tell you to do something that I can do and have you do damage to your body. SO MUCH of it has to do with the bonding area by the hinge and above the A-arm area.

Measure BOTH sides at the hinge...from the top edge of the hood surround down to where the hinge bolts to the inner skirt and see what you have...Then it may be seeing how THICK the hood is at these same areas. It is possible that there is an excessive amount of bonding adhesive there and that is what it throwing you off and your car is actually fine. Some thinking may be required to make a good way to measure both sides of the hood at the hinge also.

DUB

 

Hi DUB, this all makes good sense, I'm away for a couple of days but will come back to you with photo's
cheers Dave

 

My hood sits about 1/2" or more high above the fenders at the rear near the windshield on both sides. To adjust the latch pins so that it sits flush, the hood will not latch to the pins since they are adjusted so tight... What do I do about this? If my hood sat flush at the rear, as explained, my restoration would be complete and the old C3 would be near flawless... as it sits now, it always looks like the hood is unlatched; I have people say, "Dude, Your hood ain't latched!"... so embarrassing when the rest of the car is beautiful. HELP!!!